Arizona forest-restoration afoot after tough 2 years

by Michelle Ye Hee Lee - Mar. 24, 2012 10:46 PM The Republic | azcentral.com

It was a summer afternoon in 2010 when Randie Wareham looked up at Schultz Peak from her home near the base of the mountain where a fire that torched more than 15,000 acres had recently been extinguished.

What she saw struck her with terror: an avalanche of mud flowing down the mountainside north of Flagstaff. As it rumbled into her neighborhood, it brought with it a destructive stew of ash, tree stumps, wood chunks, fences -- anything that stood in its way. Then, a flash flood wiped away everything in her home except a few photo frames placed on the highest shelves.

Wareham and her family survived the flood that decimated their home. But they never moved back. And with fire season drawing near, she can't help but think about the unwitting risks Arizonans face in areas where the potential for catastrophic fire and subsequent flooding are a constant source of danger.

"We're going to be OK, we're going to move on," said Wareham, whose family recently moved into a Flagstaff rental home. "But we just think about our friends and their children. We just want them to be safe. ... I think about them all the time, especially when the season comes and it starts flooding again."

The past two fire seasons devastated parts of the state after low humidity and heavy winds created tinderbox conditions that fanned flames through Arizona's forests and wildlands, some bordering sizable communities.

Last year alone, more than 20,000 residents were displaced as homes, cabins and businesses were evacuated in the paths of five separate fires of more than 10,000 acres apiece. Among the most damaging in the past two years were:

Last year's record-setting Wallow Fire, the state's largest ever on record, which burned 538,049 acres near Springerville and Eagar in eastern Arizona. To stabilize the burn area, a massive reforestation and rehabilitation process costing $29 million took place after the fire and through last fall, said Pamela Baltimore, public-affairs officer for Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests.

A second monster blaze in 2011, the Horseshoe Two Fire, was the state's fourth-largest ever, burning 222,954 acres near the New Mexico border in southeastern Arizona. About 5,000 acres have been reseeded, many areas have been mulched, and officials continue to rebuild about 350 miles of burned fences, said Ruben Morales, fire-management officer at the Douglas Ranger District.

The Monument Fire scorched 30,526 acres south of Sierra Vista, consuming 57 homes before its containment. Mulching and aerial seeding was completed on the most severely burned 1,502 acres within two months of the fire being extinguished, said Marylee Peterson, Coronado National Forest information officer. The goal: to prevent flooding and dangerous erosion along the eastern flanks of the Huachuca Mountains.

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Arizona forest-restoration afoot after tough 2 years